Cormorants on country file

[captain birdseye]

Did yer see the size of the fish them cormorants were troughing down on countryfile.

They have to build shelters for em so the fish can escape the greedy buggers.

Cant see them doing this on commercial fisheries as it would end up festooned with feeders and all that.

Fishery owners ought to be able to shoot em legally.

[fenboy]

Just before Christmas I was out in the Fens, just outside Ely, on business unconnected with angling. Driving down a drove off the main Soham road and alongside a tiny drain no more than five feet wide, I was amazed to disturb two cormorants fishing what amounted to no more than a ditch.

I know that fish live in small drains - I've taken pike to over 20 lb from them - but I define a small drain as 14ft wide and three feet deep.

And, to get back to the subject, no I don't think fishery owners should be allowed to kill cormorants, nor any wild creatures other than threats to human health (rats, wasps, etc).

We're conservationists, nature lovers. Not exterminators. If they are eating fish, it's because they need them to survive. We don't.

Culling cormorants is the thin edge of the wedge. What next? Otters? Kingfishers? Herons?

Remember, match-orientated fishing clubs used to kill pike because they ate other fish. Some backward clubs still do.

I'm afraid that in the case of cormorants it is in our own best interests to grin and bear it and work with other bodies like the RSPB. That is what responsible people who don't want to be seen as environmental hooligans do...

[kleinboet]

Fenboy, what you have to realise is that the comorant was a shore bird, but COMMERCIAL overfishing, backed by the EU, has caused them to move inland, and the government refuses to believe they are a problem and probably won't until most of our fish are on the endangered list.

[Brian Crawford]

fenboy:

 

Remember, match-orientated fishing clubs used to kill pike because they ate other fish. Some backward clubs still do.

I'm afraid that in the case of cormorants it is in our own best interests to grin and bear it and work with other bodies like the RSPB. That is what responsible people who don't want to be seen as environmental hooligans do...

Remember the early 1980's, Fenboy? I know you do. match-oriented clubs brought out rules that all zander caught had to be killed in the fens. I remember seeing dozens of dead zander thrown up on the banks of the Nene in Peterborough for all non-anglers to see what a caring bunch of conservationalists we are/were! Where was the NFA then???

 

At least cormorants have become an European wide issue and action may be taken - eventually - but too late for some fisheries.

 

Brian

[fenboy]

Thorny issue, that one, Brian, as you do indeed know. I did a "Kevin Keegan" over the Fens predator cull issue. No, I didn't get my hair permed, but I did resign from the then NASG because they supported the cull.

It still grates with me today, not least because the anti-cull lobby were right all along... zander, like any other predator, can't be to blame for a crash in prey stocks. Numbers of predators are determined by numbers of prey and not vice-versa. That's a rule of nature.

The former Anglian Water Authority were using flawed science as a cover-up for their own inadequacies and expected anglers to fall for it. Most did, but I'm proud to say I didn't.

Sadly, all these years later, zander still have the reputation as ruthless killers that destroy fish populations. Anybody who fishes waters containing zander knows this isn't true.

ANyway, that's water under the bridge now. Let's just hope that anglers today don't make the same sort of mistakes. ANd I believe a call for a cormorant cull is somnething that would reflect badly upon the sport.

[Jon Hedges]

I don't feel educated enough on the topic to take sides ...

On the one hand you have birds decimating fish stocks. :mad: So the call for a cull is fully understandable).

On the other hand, we overfished the ocean, so the birds move inland to find food. So the case to cull something entirely of our own making is flawed.

 

Without wishing to start WW3 is this an overly simplistic view of the situation ??

[Brian Crawford]

JonHedges:

I don't feel educated enough on the topic to take sides ...

On the one hand you have birds decimating fish stocks.    :mad:    So the call for a cull is fully understandable).

On the other hand, we overfished the ocean, so the birds move inland to find food.     So the case to cull something entirely of our own making is flawed.

 

Without wishing to start WW3 is this an overly simplistic view of the situation ??

It is the case of recreational fishing paying for the excesses of commercial fishing - as is the case of the potential extinction of freshwater eels.

 

Brian

[Cranfield]

I think listing cormorants in the same group as otters, kingfishers, herons is disingenuous.

 

They are not a threatened specie and I would think their numbers have grown considerably, as they have taken up residence inland.

 

Farmers are permitted to shoot "vermin", that threaten their crops (wood pigeons, rabbits etc).

Why should Fisheries and cormorants, be any different ?

[Jeff S]

I was under the impression that cormorants could be taken as long as the shooter had proper documentation/ license. Can't remember if it was from a thread on AN or a local that I spoke with though.

[Tim Kelly]

Cormerants were put on the protected species list when their numbers were in decline at sea. Like many birds on the protected list, Brent geese for example, they are certainly no longer threatened and are now at pest proportions.

The list of what's protected should be under constant review and things should be able to be taken off as well as added.